Nightmare start
The Bahrain Grand Prix officially certified the state of dramatic sporting crisis facing theAlpine. The French team, owned by Renault, appears to have the development of the new single-seater was completely wrong – the A524 – which on the Sakhir track turned out to be the worst car on the grid in terms of performance. A huge step backwards, even for a team that had already significantly disappointed expectations in recent years.
After the Sakhir race the news of the resignation – resigned even before the presentation of the new car – of the technical director Matt Harman and the head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer. The first has been replaced by a triumvirate of technicians who will deal with individual specific areas. However, it is impossible to think that the situation could improve already this weekend, on the Saudi track of Jeddah, home of the second GP of the year.
Gasly and Ocon give up: “No miracle possible”
“We knew that arriving in Bahrain with a completely new car would be difficult and in the end it turned out to be that way – he has declared Esteban Oconpresenting the second round of the championship – we must try to react quickly. We know that there are no miracles in this sport and that it will take time to remedy the situation, but the whole team is working hard and is motivated to change things. The Jeddah track is very fast and very physical and being a city circuit also requires a lot of concentration for the entire duration of the race. Furthermore, the track surface combined with the tire compounds usually leads to low degradation, meaning the race becomes more of a sprint than a marathon. For this reason it will be interesting to see how the A524 reacts on a different track. We hope to do better than in Bahrain“.
Ocon's teammate, the other French rider, expressed the same line of thought Pierre Gasly: “This was a difficult start. The performances and the final result in Bahrain were what we expected this season. Our goal was to continue learning and improving, trying to maximize everything we had in our hands. We have many areas to improve – we know which ones – and I know we will find solutions. We're keeping our heads down, working hard with the tools we have and that's going to take some patience. We are aware of our situation and it will take time to improve. But this doesn't change my mentality. The Jeddah track represents an exciting challenge. It's very different to the one in Bahrain and it will be interesting to see how the car behaves on a faster track.”.
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